


When Feeling Out of Sight

by prairiecrow



Series: The Curse of the Mendari [2]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Corellians Are Bad News Right?, Droid to Human, Jealousy, M/M, R2-D2 Feels, Transformation, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six episodes from the life of Artoo Detoo, recently turned human — and really not up to dealing with all the bullshit that comes with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Feeling Out of Sight

**Author's Note:**

> All titles in this series taken from "How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
> 
> How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.  
> I love thee to the depth and breadth and height  
> My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight  
> For the ends of being and ideal grace.  
> I love thee to the level of every day’s  
> Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.  
> I love thee freely, as men strive for right.  
> I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.  
> I love thee with the passion put to use  
> In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.  
> I love thee with a love I seemed to lose  
> With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,  
> Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,  
> I shall but love thee better after death.

1.

Artoo knew that Anra Virlan was trouble the first time he saw the Corellian in person: tall, broad, with a long black leather coat and gleaming look-at-me-I'm-an-asshole boots and a shock of wild-spiked red hair and a stupid goatee and a self-satisfied grin that made you want to punch it off his face.

Of course he'd been hearing about the guy from Threepio for the past week: _Captain Virlan_ this, _Captain Virlan_ that — so bold, so intelligent, so daring, so considerate and so helpful to those less fortunate…

… but when Threepio began referring to the son of a nerf as _Anra_ —

— well, that was a step too far. From then on, whenever Threepio started chirping on about his new friend Artoo made a point of shutting up and shutting his ears, only keeping sufficient track of Threepio's rhapsodizing to grunt noncommitally in the appropriate places.

2.

The morning Threepio wandered into Artoo's workshop — three and a half hours late — with a distracted air and a dreamy half-smile, Artoo's heart sank as if the planet's gravity had increased by a factor of ten. He had to clamp his jaw shut to stop himself from asking what the hell had happened to make Threepio so… pleasantly floaty.

But what the fark — it wasn't like he actually cared, he and Threepio had been growing in different directions since the Mendari Complex had given them these weird human bodies, what business was it of his if his former counterpart was happy, or sad, or anything else?

Threepio, of course, was oblivious to Artoo's disgruntled condition. He draped himself across the workshop couch, for once apparently uncaring of the dirt and dust, and gazed abstractedly at the ceiling, gesturing languidly with one slender hand as he rambled on about everything, and nothing, with such an air of bone-deep happiness that Artoo could taste the bile rising in the back of his own throat.

3.

"Ooh!" Maker help a Sarlacc, Threepio was actually _twittering_. "Oh my! Captain, these formalities really aren't necessary —"

Virlan's clipped accent couldn't hide his oily smirk from Artoo's keen ears. "On the contrary — when the prettiest man on Mendar enters a room, it is only proper to salute his loveliness." A pause, and when Threepio twittered even more brightly Artoo just knew that the slimy bastard was kissing his fingers again. Sickening! "Are you ready for lunch? I've made a reservation at that new restaurant on the Promenade, the one where they play Enorka flower-hymns —"

"— oh, you _darling!_ You know, I've been meaning to study their fingering techniques!"

"I remember you saying so once or twice." His voice was rich with amusement. "Here, let me help you with your coat…"

Threepio laughed again, a delighted trill. Artoo gritted his teeth and buried his head in the guts of a speeder engine, applying his wrench with such force that he promptly stripped the bolt he was trying to loosen.

When Threepio called a cheery farewell, he definitely was not listening. No, nope, negatory, signal _not_ received.

4.

"He's using you!" The bellow tore out of Artoo's throat, hurting and feeling fiercely good at the same time. "You're just too brainless and self-absorbed to see it!"

"Well!" Threepio drew himself up to his full height, his eyes narrowing and his nostrils flaring with indignation. "I never!"

They faced each other across the workshop floor, and although Artoo knew that everybody for three work bays in all directions must be hearing the fight, he was too enraged to care.

"You never _think,_ " Artoo yelled, his oily fists clenched as if ready to punch his friend square in the nose. "You just — you swan around like you're the Maker's gift to this planet, convinced that everybody _must_ be in love with you because you're _so_ good looking, how the hell could they not be? But you're all looks and no brains — and believe you me, that's no secret!"

Threepio recoiled as if struck — or started to, until his proud stiff spine stopped the motion. "How dare you!" he whispered, his face even paler than usual except for a high hectic blush on each cheekbone. "You — you horrid ugly little man! None of that is true — you're only jealous because _you've_ never been so much as kissed by a —"

Those amber eyes widened, and Threepio clapped a horrified hand over his mouth. For his part, Artoo felt all the blood drain from his face, leaving it — leaving all of him — a dead drained shade of nauseated grey.

"Get out," he breathed, then howled like a dire-wolf when Threepio hesitated: _"Get out of here, you traitor!"_

Threepio turned quickly away, grabbing for his coat before striding stiff-legged out of the workshop — but not before Artoo saw the fugitive gleam of anguished tears in his golden eyes.

5.

He drank because the nights were lonely and long.

He drank because there was too much silence and not enough vivacious chatter to fill it.

He drank because of all he had never dared, and everything that now would never be.

Most of all, he drank to forget.

It didn't work.

6.

In the end, he found himself facing Anra Virlan across the body of a slain L'rassal mercenary, her head caved in by a blow from the plasteel pipe clutched in Artoo's strong right hand.

Virlan, his face streaked with blood along its left side from a cut that had almost laid his cheek open to the teeth, offered Artoo a feral grin. He was also offering the mercenary's blaster, retrieved from the ground beside her limp hand.

"Come on then," he invited, jerking his chin toward the palace, "we've got a lover who needs rescuing!"

He tossed the blaster. Artoo caught it and exchanged it for the pipe, savagely pleased with the hard cruel way it fitted into his hand — and the way it was going to punish the fools who'd dared to lay hands on his Threepio.

 _Their_ Threepio — because as he headed into the fray with his maybe-former enemy at his side, he realized that he and Virlan had been in agreement all along about the things that really mattered.

THE END


End file.
